Radio Girls(57)

It was, finally, a bright day, with the sky a pagan celebration blue and the flowers in the potted plants hanging from lamps along Savoy Street giving full vent to their bliss. Maisie, armed with a steno pad and a notebook full of Hilda’s thoughts on broadcasting, headed to the Tup, warm thoughts of Mrs. Holmby’s lamb chops putting a skip in her step, but the glory of the day and the majesty of her new watch turned her to the sandwich bar on the Strand. Laden with sandwiches, chocolate from Miss Cryer’s, and, despite the promise of a long tea, two cakes, she strolled down to the Embankment.

She rolled a pencil through her fingers, staring at the Thames as it bubbled along. I wonder how far it goes? I’d love to travel the whole length of it someday. And then out through the estuary and on and on.

“I say, would you mind awfully if I shared the bench? Rotten impertinent of me, but this is the only one I’ve passed for the last half mile that’s not overflowing with squawking children and snapping nannies. Gosh, doesn’t ‘Squawking Children and Snapping Nannies’ sound like a music-hall ditty? I might be in the wrong business.”

Maisie looked up at the tall young man hovering by the bench. His derby was set well back on his head, showing off waving brown hair, slicked back enough to be neat, but not so much as to be dandified. Chocolate-brown eyes, soft and puppyish, with a cheery snap around the edges. Crinkles under his eyes that went deep as he smiled. She felt as if someone had lightly brushed the back of her neck—a tickle she felt all the way to her toes.

“Well, it’s a public bench, so I really can’t lay claim to the whole of it.”

“I can’t know. You might have given money for it,” he pointed out.

“Wouldn’t that be a sight, miles of us all on our own benches? That takes entitlement a bit far.”

“It could sound like free enterprise,” he ventured.

“It doesn’t sound like free anything,” she told him with finality.

“Wise words,” he said, sitting down and unwrapping a sandwich. Maisie sneaked one last glance at him and turned back to her own food.

“I must say,” her uninvited companion piped up, “I’m a bit surprised to see a young girl out on her own like this.”

She bristled. “You think I should have a chaperone?”

“Nothing so bourgeois as that,” he said, chuckling. “I only meant that you modern girls usually go ’round in pairs, or a gag—er, group.”

“You were about to say ‘gaggle,’ weren’t you?” She was surprised by her own sharpness. It was so easy to talk to someone you weren’t sure you wanted around, tickle or no. He was handsome, and perhaps clever, but she knew now that handsome young men were lethal.

He threw back his head and laughed, just like Hilda.

“Caught but corrected. And contrite.”

“I like eating alone,” she told him. She didn’t want it to sound like a hint, but her hackles were rising. She refused to be seen as easy prey.

“Ah, but you’re not alone. You’ve got a notebook. Do you write?”

She closed the book, protective of Hilda’s privacy.

“A little.”

“For business or pleasure?”

“Isn’t most writing always both?”

He laughed again.

“You’re a funny thing,” he told her. “I’m a writer as well, journalism, some essays—well, they bleed together.”

“Oh!” Interest flowered. “Do you write for one of the Fleet Street papers?”

“No. Far too bourgeois for me. I write for Pinpoint. Do you know it?”

“I don’t, I’m afraid.” Reams of periodicals coursed into Savoy Hill daily, buffeted either by staff who thought they might be of worth, or by Hilda’s insistence that they all be familiar with more than just the principal papers. (“It’s always useful to hear as many voices as possible. Even those somewhat lacking in coherence.”)

“We’re still new. Just starting to make some rumblings,” he said, rubbing his hands together and grinning a little maniacally. Maisie always liked seeing men passionate about their work, but then, Guy Fawkes probably had been, too. “If you’re keen, I’d be delighted to send you some copies. Wouldn’t presume to ask your home address, but if you’re one of the great new throng of lady laborers, I could post them to you there, if your employer would allow it.”

“They would positively encourage it,” Maisie said. “I work at the BBC,” she told him, lacing her pride with a sliver of nonchalance.

“No! Do you, really?” He laughed again, longer than seemed warranted. “Ah, well, we all pay our respects to Mammon somehow. Secretary, are you?”

And a very good one. But she wondered what it would be like to be asked without the expectation of being right.

“But you do a bit of writing on the side—is that it?” He registered her nod and barreled on, pleased with his perspicacity. “Good show! Always try to do something more—that’s my motto. Well, one of them. But a fun girl like you, seems you ought to be chatting with other clever girls in your free moments. You’re all rather clever these days, aren’t you?”

“Fun”? “Clever”? When had such language ever been applied to her?

“Maybe we always were clever, and you just never noticed.” Was this really her?